Elena Schildgen Email & Phone Number

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

As the Managing Partner, I hold full operational and financial control including developing and implementing the growth strategy, co-ordinating with our corporate partner in Saudi Arabia and handling my own caseload as a Wills & Probate specialist and registered Will Draftsman. My Responsibilities and Achievements to date include:• Coordinating, training and leading the Dubai based firm consisting of 5 practicing lawyers and co-ordinating with our corporate partnership, a legally registered firm in Riyadh, KSA. • Personally writing articles and manging the publication of our quarterly magazine ‘Lex Arabia’ which is sent to clients as a way to both inform and educate as well as showcase our expertise across the topics covered. Recent titles include: ‘Introducing VAT in the UAE’ and ‘New investment laws in Egypt’.• As the firm has grown over the years and adapted to the changing needs of the region, I have sourced talent both locally and from our German student interns. This strategy has enabled the firm to truly become a one stop shop for all of our clients’ legal needs and today covers 12 fields of law including the 2 original fields of Company Formation and Maritime but also Real Estate, Family, Wills & Probate and Intellectual Property.• I have also been integral with strategically growing the firm, ensuring it is large enough to advise on major corporate legal issues inclusive of multi-jurisdictional corporate restructuring such as carve outs, mergers and acquisitions whilst not diminishing the personal contact with the lawyers handling the cases. • As a truly multi-national firm, we have English, German and Italian speaking lawyers and since 2016 this includes Arabic meaning we are able to advise on Sharia law, explain the local legal system and provide peace of mind for our clients.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Following the completion of my internship and upon entering the German Bar, I was offered a position in the firm where I initially focused on company formation, registration and structure law and subsequently was made partner in 1995. My Key Responsibilities and Achievements included:• Providing various legal services with a particular focus of employment law, agency & distribution agreements and trademarks where I drafted, reviewed, amended and negotiated commercial and corporate contracts including commercial agency and distributer agreements.• I also pioneered into the region the ability to have sector company formation including freight forwarding as the first European based in the region. For this to be a success, I developed holding structures for conglomerates with several satellite offices across the GCC which resulted in being one of the first times a holding structure was used in the UAE.• As the region’s economy developed, I continued to grow my expertise which included advising international corporate clients on setting up of companies in the United Arab Emirates and grew to include advice on the Free Zones.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

During my lawyer apprenticeship, I completed a 5 month internship where I held the responsibility for writing legal settlements, one of which focused on inheritance issues for a multi-national couple following their divorce.